What reason was there for a new Hunger Games film? Nostalgia for a decade ago, when YA reigned supreme just as Marvel was rising to power? A last-ditch attempt to wring some money out of a known property? The greatest question of all: why is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes actually good? Why did they make a real movie for no reason? No one needed this to be a gripping, bleak drama about a young man coming to understand how the world works, a young man opportunistic in a way that always seems to leave people dead. But, for some reason, the Hunger Games prequel is possibly better than the original film series, with strong performances from relative newcomers Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler and Josh Andrés Rivera. I’m as surprised as you are!
Sixty-four years before Katniss volunteers as tribute, Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is an ambitious teenager keen on restoring his family’s fortune and power after a devastating war. While he lives in his dilapidated family manor with his grandmother (Fionnula Flanagan) and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer), he hides his troubles at the academy from his wealthier peers. His deceased father would always say, “Snow lands on top,” and he intends on making good on that belief. The 10th Hunger Games are fast approaching, and with ratings falling, the head gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis, being a ham) has devised a new twist. The top of the class will be mentors to this year’s tributes, and the winner will receive an enormous cash prize. Coriolanus is paired with a traveling musician named Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a fiery performer seemingly doomed to die in the arena. Fortunately, Coriolanus has a few plans to help Lucy Gray survive, though he might make a few enemies along the way.
Clearly having learned from the mistake of splitting Mockingjay into two parts, director Francis Lawrence opts to give us the full story here at a nearly three hour runtime, which is an act of rare restraint in Hollywood. The Hunger Games wrap up with an entire hour to go, giving the film an extended grim climax that really makes the entire endeavor make sense. Though Songbirds & Snakes has some familiar YA trappings, the inevitability of Snow’s descent into his future as a murderous dictator naturally colors the action. While I have nothing against Katniss’s fight to remain a person while becoming the face of a revolution, watching a bisexual lunatic scheme his way through a corrupt system is inherently more interesting.
Blyth is the standout, taking a very internal character and writing his war between cruelty and compassion all over his face. Though Zegler has an incredible voice and stage presence, Lucy Gray Baird is more of a concept than a full-fledged character, but she shows that hope is not lost even if the actual revolution is decades away. She’s asked to do a lot, and she accomplishes it all. Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis are opposite sides of the reality spectrum, Dinklage embodying the miserable reality of Panem and Davis playing up the Frankenstein surreality of the richest of the rich. Plus, we get Jason Schwartzman as a sleazy weatherman tasked with hosting the Games, taking up the reins from Stanely Tucci in the original films. The cast never feels low-rent in a way you’d expect from a standard franchise revival.
Few prequels justify their existence, but this film makes the case well. Not only do we get to see the early version of the flashy pageants Katniss must navigate, we get to understand the cynicism behind their origins. While the Games felt like a grim reality to overcome for Katniss, Coriolanus sees them as flawed and useful, helping sew them into the fabric of Capitol life. There’s an eeriness to the film, denying catharsis except from your memories of a film that came out eight years ago. Even that might be tough, as pretty much everyone I know dropped off after Mockingjay Part One. Songbirds & Snakes deserves to do well, a brutal surprise for a complacent audience.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
2023
Dir. Francis Lawrence
157 min
In theaters Friday 11/17
